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OpenZFS Committed To Improving Open-Source ZFS

Phoronix: OpenZFS Committed To Improving Open-Source ZFS

Last month I wrote about the launch of OpenZFS as an initiative to organize the various open-source ZFS file-system projects around Linux, BSD, OS X, and other platforms. OpenZFS is an umbrella project now for all the different ZFS implementations since the code became available during the Sun Microsystems glory days...

Awesome. I just wish they could plug the GPL bug in the Linux kernel to allow inclusion of CCDL licensed code (or if Oracle could re-license it to be more permissive)

The GPL incompability of CDDL was obviously a deliberate decision made by Sun's management as why the hell would they want to hand over their technical advantages to the competitor (Linux) which was eating them alive in the market, same goes for DTrace. Not that it ended up doing them much good.

Now the chance that Oracle (who know owns ZFS) would re-licence it under GPL would have been a possibility if they weren't so invested in the GPL licenced BTRFS (which they created AFAIK), and has basically put their ZFS offering on proprietary maintenance mode.

So ZFS will remain incompatible with inclusion into Linux, which again was the whole point with it being licenced under CDDL as the licence was crafted for that very purpose.

The GPL incompability of CDDL was obviously a deliberate decision made by Sun's management as why the hell would they want to hand over their technical advantages to the competitor (Linux) which was eating them alive in the market, same goes for DTrace. Not that it ended up doing them much good.

Now the chance that Oracle (who know owns ZFS) would re-licence it under GPL would have been a possibility if they weren't so invested in the GPL licenced BTRFS (which they created AFAIK), and has basically put their ZFS offering on proprietary maintenance mode.

So ZFS will remain incompatible with inclusion into Linux, which again was the whole point with it being licenced under CDDL as the licence was crafted for that very purpose.

One can always hope for Oracle doing the right thing (they are not as attached to Solaris). They have done some effort in getting DTrace on Linux, so perhaps...

The GPL incompability of CDDL was obviously a deliberate decision made by Sun's management as why the hell would they want to hand over their technical advantages to the competitor (Linux) which was eating them alive in the market, same goes for DTrace. Not that it ended up doing them much good.

Now the chance that Oracle (who know owns ZFS) would re-licence it under GPL would have been a possibility if they weren't so invested in the GPL licenced BTRFS (which they created AFAIK), and has basically put their ZFS offering on proprietary maintenance mode.

So ZFS will remain incompatible with inclusion into Linux, which again was the whole point with it being licenced under CDDL as the licence was crafted for that very purpose.

Some things I don't get:

1. If Sun didn't want to hand out the technical merits of ZFS (which it obviously has) to competition, why did they create BTRFS? Can we imply from this that BTRFS is deliberately inferior? If not, why not just give away ZFS?

2. Maybe this one everybody knows, but I personally fail to understand: what EXACTLY makes CDDL incompatible with GPL? What could happen if ZFS were included in the Linux kernel? Lawsuits?

Could Oracle even re-license it as GPL? I thought they had to get permission from all the contributors?

I assumed that Sun required copyright assignment when someone contributed to their official version of ZFS, and that since Oracle bought ZFS together with their Sun aquisition they also gained full copyright over Sun's ZFS version (they can't of course take away the right to use existing CDDL licenced code under CDDL) they could re-licence/dual licence it at will.

But maybe you're right and they can't re-licence it if Sun did not require copyright assignment to them, I don't know.

1. If ORACLE didn't want to hand out the technical merits of ZFS (which it obviously has) to competition, why did they create BTRFS? Can we imply from this that BTRFS is deliberately inferior? If not, why not just give away ZFS?